(2) "A los ninos que mataban, componianlos en muchos atavios para llevarlos al sacrificio, y llevabos en unas literas sobre los hombros, estas literas iban adornadas con plumages y con flores: iban tanendo, cantando y bailando delante de ellos... Cuando Ileviban los ninos a matar, si llevaban y echaban muchos lagrimas, alegrabansi los que los llevaban porque tomaban pronostico de que habian de tener muchas aguas en aquel ano." Sahagun, Historia Nueva Espana, Bk. II, ch. i. Bernal Diaz describes how he saw one of these monstrous figures--that of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, all inlaid with gold and precious stones; and beside it were "braziers, wherein burned the hearts of three Indians, torn from their bodies that very day, and the smoke of them and the savor of incense were the sacrifice." Sahagun again (in Book II, ch. 5) gives a long account of the sacrifice of a perfect youth at Easter-time--which date Sahagun connects with the Christian festival of the Resurrection. For a whole year the youth had been held in honor and adored by the people as the very image of the god (Tetzcatlipoca) to whom he was to be sacrificed. Every luxury and fulfilment of his last wish (including such four courtesans as he desired) had been granted him. At the last and on the fatal day, leaving his companions and his worshipers behind, be slowly ascended the Temple staircase; stripping on each step the ornaments from his body; and breaking and casting away his flutes and other musical instruments; till, reaching the summit, he was stretched, curved on his back, and belly upwards, over the altar stone, while the priest with obsidian knife cut his breast open and, snatching the heart out, held it up, yet beating, as an offering to the Sun. In the meantime, and while the heart still lived, his successor for the next year was chosen. In Book II, ch. 7 of the same work Sahagun describes the similar offering of a woman to a goddess. In both cases (he explains) of young man or young woman, the victims were richly adorned in the guise of the god or goddess to whom they were offered, and at the same time great largesse of food was distributed to all who needed. (Here we see the connection in the general mind between the gift of food (by the gods) and the sacrifice of precious blood (by the people).) More than once Sahagun mentions that the victims in these Mexican ceremonials not infrequently offered THEMSELVES as a voluntary sacrifice; and Prescott says (1) that the offering of one's life to the gods was "sometimes voluntarily embraced, as a most glorious death opening a sure passage into Paradise." (1) Conquest of Mexico, Bk. I, ch. 3.